Xenteroth
High Regent Xenteroth is an ascendent alhoon of great magical power who has had influence throughout the timeline of Eon. He was the caster of Snowstorm Prime between the First Age and Second Age. He was a planeswalker capable of time travel at will, and was a High King on the Southern Continent. He ruled from Xenteroth's Tower when it was intact. Stories say that he created golems in this tower. Rumor has it that Xenteroth's Tower is tied to the appearance of mindflayers en masse in about 1340 SA. Unlike normal illithids, he had four fingers on each hand when he had humanoid form. He may appear as an undead Elder Brain or as an alhoon, as he pleases. Though he has no known worshipers, he is a god. In Historical Eon Pre-Firestorm Xenteroth was created in the First Age before the last Snowstorm. His Mother Brain was the Mother of the Firemore Desert; he was fostered by another Mother from his first day of life, as are all casters. He admired the previous caster, Talos, until she began to torment him. For reasons unknown, Xenteroth was called to perform the cast at only six years old. He traveled with a party of adventurers: the First Age incarnations of Felix Fineas Faust, Tyro, Barron Ganth, and Morrison Vanguard. He regretted the lack of chess puzzles in his adventures. In the Frozen Fate silo of Eldergrin, he encountered the Second Age versions of The Company; he spoke with Ashra, and The Girl With No Name taught him to solve the puzzle on the door. He and his party claimed the fates for Eon and the previous age, leaving The Company to claim the fate for Aegis. Talos refused to surrender her soul to him when the time came, and she met with an unspeakably horrible fate, perhaps at his hands. As soon as Xenteroth began to cast the spell, there was a massive, chaotic battle between the gods and his party. While he blamed no particular individual later, he felt that his party betrayed him, and the cast did not go as planned. The entire civilization of Ravinia was lost against his will. Post-Firestorm Xenteroth emerged in the new world as an elderbrain god. He chose to live disconnected from time, interacting with the Age out of order to allow for better study. He devoted himself to the study of Mechanus in an attempt to preserve his own gear and live beyond the Second Age. He also became an alhoon in another attempt to survive the next Snowstorm. He called himself High Regent in honor of his late mother the Firemore, believing that she should have been the one to enjoy his power and position. As the Snowstorm rewrote the First Age as well, elements of Xenteroth's history changed. Early in that age, he appeared on the Southern Continent and built his tower over an earlier religious site. He did not claim regency. Xenteroth also became a leader in Discordian society. Both Heckle and Hjartlos eventually entered Xenteroth's service defending the Frozen Fates from any further destructive use. After the fall of Eldergrin, he proclaimed himself High Regent and made some subtle modifications. The extent of his influence and the length of time he spent working in or around the Ruins of Eldergrin is unknown. However, he knew the locations of the rest of the fate silo of the Discordians. He froze the fates and hid the triggers in many different places in the multiverse, sometimes breaking them into different pieces. Other known additions to the Ruins include an infinitely spawning necromantic guardian red dragon and a demi-lich cleric who claims to be over nine hundred years old, but almost certainly is not. The cleric's holy symbol appears to be the symbol of Tiamat when viewed with True Seeing He created a tower, which is currently ruined and inhabited by goblins. At some point he ascended to power by marching his armies through a connection between the Prime and Hell. It is unknown whether this actually happened or was a result of his rewriting the age and explaining his own power. The Deep Tower depicted his ascension several hundred years before it happened. Gabriel Tanarruk met the mortal mindflayer Xenteroth in a bar in the City of Brass in 400 SA. After some discussion with the bartender, she learned that he was a planeswalker who just shows up whenever he feels like it. Heckle went over to ask him questions about Xenteroth's time in hell, as Heckle was writing a book and Xenteroth's ascension to godhood in 300 SA seemed pretty relevant to his interests. Xenteroth was fascinated by this, as he had yet to experience any such thing. Heckle offered Xenteroth the first copy of his book in exchange for transportation back to Goneril. Xenteroth agreed, and the two of them instantly planeshifted to Xenteroth's Tower so Heckle could write in peace. . In Contemporary Eon In about 1400 SA, he was defeated by the crew of the Rusted Feather, a group of adventurers including Cora Hilltopple and Edmund Vargus. They were sponsored in some capacity by Barron Ganth. Xenteroth's fall is depicted on three of the five tapestries in The Nautilus. However, the age of the tapestries and the style of the armor depicted in them is about 60 years too old. Those tapestries, as found by the party, showed the following: in the first, a massive tower; in the second, a paladin striking down a mind flayer in front of the tower with a black emotion stone in the background; in the third, the paladin walking away from the ruined tower. A pattern of interlocking gears also made an appearance somewhere in there. This pattern of gears has appeared in a tapestry in The Dark Tower and also in a tapestry of Olidammara in the Ruins of Eldergrin, when Ashra looked at it in the Mirror of True Seeing. Xenteroth described this end as fitting the narrative; the crew did not damage his phylactery, and so his death was purely for show. Xenteroth contacted both Grax and Xoth and told them of his existence and his plans. Both agreed to work with him. Grax grew intensely jealous of Ashra and opposed her at every turn. A statue possessing some of his power was found in the Ruins of Eldergrin during Season Seven, Episode Four, and nearly ripped a hole in existence during Episode Seven of the same season by casting Vengeful Eye of God. It was thwarted by the party members solving a counting puzzle and thus causing the statue to be sucked back into the Throne of Discord. Ethan of Malvont currently has that statue's staff. A demi-lich of Xenteroth's creation was also in the ruins, though that lich sealed himself under several tons of rock with a Lesser Wish. Dread Pirate Gauve found a phylactery in the woods near Port Townsend, which he eventually sold to Vishnu, who sold it again to Prince Avimeus. When the party heard that there had been a lot of suspicious digging in those woods, they used Sending to warn Avi, who sealed the phylactery inside the Mountain of Kings. The Hand of Vecna led the party to retrieve the phylactery, which can only be destroyed through some use in conjunction with The Dark Lantern. When Xenteroth became aware of Ashra, he attempted to delay her discovering her identity and rewriting the Prime, fearing this would cause his death. Xenteroth tricked Ashra on Mechanus, creating complicated illusions of five Mother Brains, most of her important siblings, and two avatars to make Ashra vulnerable so he could extract her brain. The Mother Brain of Baldur warned Ashra, and she attempted to run before Xenteroth could kill her. Xenteroth killed Zaphodel, Aether, and Prince Avimeus V in the ensuing battle, but was eventually defeated by the combined efforts of the entire party. After his physical body was destroyed, he whispered to Ashra that the life cycle of her people was a lie he had escaped. The party found a vat of undead illithid tadpoles, which were Xenteroth's non-viable spawn. Ashra destroyed them. This attempt to delay Ashra was technically successful, as it inspired a mutiny which may have doomed that entire timeline. However, that instance of Ashra and the party was looped back by Talnec Franco, and they are preparing to cast Snowstorm in this timeline. As soon as the party killed Haveo Gloriosa, Xenteroth ceased all resistance to the Snowstorm. He recognized this as a viable cast which could no longer be delayed, and did not wish to share Talos's fate. He inspired Grax to leave Ashra an invitation to Mechanus in Eldergrin. After securing the fates, Ashra and the party returned to Mechanus, where Xenteroth challenged Ashra to a game and asked to be her friend. The game involved the members of the party as pieces; to win, they had to make it to a stairwell and ascend. Though he didn't admit this, Xenteroth provided infinite retries, and death was not real within the game. The heavy levels of illithid trash-talking which ensued made his offer of friendship seem facetious, but it was in fact fairly honest: Xenteroth wished to see the cast go well and to die in peace. Ashra eventually played a flawless game; the rest of the party were each allowed to use the Quaslan Trap, while Ashra was led to a replica Quaslan Trap which Xenteroth built in Mechanus for nostalgia's sake. Xenteroth met her there, answered her questions, and showed her their untouchable gears in the heart of Mechanus. He urged her to take care in the casting to avoid being betrayed, to live out her age, and to surrender peacefully to avoid Talos's fate. He offered her his own soul for the cast, and the two made peace. Xenteroth's Number Xenteroth's Number is the Eon name for the Fibonacci sequence. The first two numbers in the sequence are 1, and each subsequent number is the sum of the two previous. (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21...) It has shown up in the design of many dungeons and puzzles throughout Eon. It is also known as the "number of the fates", "the divine number", and the pattern describing the expansion of magic. Wild Mass Guessing It was common knowledge in the party for a while that Xenteroth was an Alhoon, but they eventually realized they had no basis for thinking this at around the same time as Barron Ganth asked if they were "retarded". Official policy on this one is probably to blame Gauve, but the weird thing is that Ethan heard the rumors of this when the Toggenburg were exploring The Nautilus, long before they ever met Gauve... Then the party remembered the inscription in said Nautilus, which explicitly described Xenteroth as a lich, and realized Ganth was trolling them. During some sections of Eon, you can push triangle to shout "Don't listen to Grax's lies! I'm High Regent Xenteroth!" The party tends to refer to particularly complex plans as Xenteroth Gambits, despite the fact there is no proof so far Xenteroth ever pulled off such a plot. Shut up Xenteroth, you're not my real dad! I think High Regent Xenteroth is a pretty cool guy, changes ages and only afraid of eternal nothingness Category:Villains Category:Eon Mythos Category:NPCs Category:Political Figures